Detroit Lions defensive line coach Kris Kocurek talks to a player during pregame drills at Ford Field in Detroit on Nov. 24, 2013. / Associated Press

Written by

Anthony Kuehn

Detroit Free Press Special Writer

Anthony Kuehn is the editor of the Detroit Lions blog Lions Gab. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. Get in touch with Anthony at lionsgab@gmail.com or on Twitter @lionsgab.

One of the most overlooked aspects of evaluating a head coach is his coaching staff. Players spend the majority of their time working with their position coaches and, oftentimes, have very little day-to-day contact with the head coach. A great head coach can have minimal benefit for a team if he doesn’t have a strong coaching staff to execute his vision.

The Lions still have a few position coaches to hire, but with the move to hire an offensive coordinator Tuesday, they have filled the biggest pieces of the staff. Some head coaches are hesitant to retain coaches from a previous regime. Sometimes it’s ego, sometimes it’s philosophy and sometimes it’s loyalty. The NFL is littered with examples of good coaches being let go simply because the head coach wants “his guy,” even if the newcomer is below the caliber of the man he replaced. Jim Caldwell has not made that mistake with this staff, as he retained many of the best coaches from Jim Schwartz’s staff.

The three strongest position groups on the team in 2013 were the offensive line, running backs and defensive line, and coaches Jeremiah Washburn, Curtis Modkins, Jim Washburn and Kris Kocurek all have been retained. The Washburns and Kocurek have an extensive history with Schwartz, yet Caldwell kept them on the staff because they are very good coaches.

I have always been a big fan of Gunther Cunningham and I’m sad to see him go. He is one of the most respected coaches in the NFL, both by coaches and players. Caldwell replaced him with Teryl Austin, a relative unknown to most fans. Austin is short on coordinating experience, but every team he has coached has made a Super Bowl while he was there.

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The Lions kept things pretty simple on defense under Cunningham. They preferred to line up and beat the man across from them rather than doing a lot of moving around and disguising. They also were among the NFL’s least-frequent blitzing teams over the last five years. Austin was quoted at the Senior Bowl as favoring a multiple-front defense that will be a little more aggressive when it comes to blitzing. They will incorporate multiple alignments with the front four and possibly even some concepts of a 3-4 defense, in an effort to confuse offenses rather than just lining up and attacking.

The Lions had a great linebacker coach in Matt Burke, but he has been replaced by Bill Sheridan, who coordinated a very underrated Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense the last two years.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Lions have made two huge improvements in their effort to maximize the talents of quarterback Matthew Stafford. The first was Caldwell himself, the man who coached Peyton Manning for 10 years. The second was announced Tuesday, when the Lions added former New Orleans Saints quarterback coach Joe Lombardi as offensive coordinator. That means the Lions now employ two men largely responsible for coaching the two quarterbacks, Manning and Drew Brees, who rewrote the record books the last couple of years.

Lombardi is known for two things: being the grandson of Vince Lombardi and possessing a brilliant football mind. Lombardi is known for thoroughly understanding the strengths and weaknesses of his players and finding ways to put them in the best position possible. He is expected to bring many of the same philosophies and nuances from the Saints’ playbook to the Lions.

The Saints’ offense is an up-tempo, attacking offense that heavily utilizes mismatches to get their playmakers in space. The Lions are expected to run more hurry-up and no-huddle offense this year and allow Stafford to audible at the line if he doesn’t like the looks he’s getting. Say what you want about Stafford’s mechanics, but mentally, he’s one of the smartest quarterbacks in the NFL and is instinctive when it comes to calling his own plays or checking out to a different play.

This should be a stark contrast to the offensive game plans under Scott Linehan. After the Monday Night Football loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Steve Young stated that the Lions’ offense utilized the same basic concepts and wasn’t “an NFL-caliber” offensive system.

The previous coaching staff always conducted themselves as if they had all the answers and stubbornly stuck to methods that were not yielding results. This coaching staff is largely comprised of coaches who have reputations for outside-the-box thinking, discipline and striving to improve. As I said last week, I have no idea whether this coaching staff will succeed. But one thing I know is the front office was well aware of what didn’t work under the previous regime, and it clearly had a plan to address those issues. I definitely can say they are headed in the right direction.